After ten years at Australia’s most famous address Ramsey St, soap star Kym Valentine is taking on a new challenge. Eleven months after having her first baby she is on stage playing, ironically enough, the role of Baby in the world premiere of Dirty Dancing — the musical, which will tour Europe next year. For Dancing Times Angela Gilltrap spoke to her about being Baby and a new mum at the same time.

Dirty Dancing giving fans the time of their livesby SHANDELLE BATTERSBY for the New Zealand Herald

When the lights come back on they reveal Frances "Baby" Houseman lying on her bed, writing in her diary. It is the summer of 1963. And this is the faithful Australian recreation of 1987's popular teen flick Dirty Dancing as a stage show, complete with multi-media video imagery, live band and more flashy dance moves than you can shake a stick at.

On stage, the story hasn't lost its spirit, thanks to superbly executed choreography, striking stage design and excellent performances. It also has a swaggering Josef Brown with no shirt on - and from where we were sitting, he practically was Swayze anyway.

Neighbours star Kym Valentine injected her own spark into the role of Baby, and it was a relief to see she could pull off the character's gawkiness and enthusiasm that the slightly plainer Jennifer Grey managed in the film.

Although they clog up auditions, it is the "amateurs" who hold the key to the success of the Dirty Dancing stage show, as the producers must know. If 1,000 women will queue for hours in the freezing cold for a chance to play Baby, then how many thousands will turn up to see the show when it opens at the Aldwych Theatre in September?

Dirty Dancing: The Classic Story on Stage has clocked up more than £6 million in ticket sales, six weeks before it opens. It is the biggest, fastest advance sale of any show in West End history. Preparations are currently underway for productions in Paris, the Netherlands, Toronto, Chicago and Spain. Dirty Dancing is fast shaping up to be the biggest theatrical event not just in London but in the world.

'There's a secret dancer inside us all'by VERONICA LEE for the Daily Telegraph

For Bergstein, much of it is autobiographical. "I was a teenager in 1963, we were New York Jewish, I was a doctor's daughter with one older sister and we took holidays in the Catskills." But Baby isn't the character with most of her in it; it was Johnny.

"My father practised in a poor area and charged only a dollar a consultation," she says. "So we never had much money. Johnny, who comes from the wrong side of the tracks and scratches a living as a dancing teacher, represents the 'otherness' I felt."

The audience has been ready for years - Tickets fly for 'Dirty Dancing' on stage.... "Dirty Dancing" is making its East Coast premiere, with the aim of going to Broadway. It's a stage adaptation of the popular 1987 film about a young 1960s tourist named Baby (Jennifer Grey) who falls for Johnny, a Catskill Mountains dance instructor (Patrick Swayze). Producers say ticket sales are tapping into a large pool of fans of the movie, including many who don't often go to the theater.

During his time with the RB I saw Mr Harvey in a variety of roles. He was most suited to those that required some personality and I remember him as an excellent Colas in La Fille Mal Gardee. In the dreadful revival of Dances at a Gathering he was the only cast member to catch the original mood of the piece. I wish him every success in his future career.

Bringing 'Dirty Dancing' to life - Eleanor Bergstein infuses stage version with political punch her film held back....For many "Dirty Dancing" fans, the film was a simple love story about a young woman who falls for her dance instructor at a Catskills Mountain resort. But to Bergstein, who wrote the screenplay based on her own experiences vacationing with her family (she was a "teen mambo queen"), it was always much more.

From the first throbbing chords to the final ecstatic dance, "Dirty Dancing - The Classic Story On Stage" grabs the audience hard and holds on tight. If Disney World had a "Dirty Dancing" ride, it would feel a lot like this.

In other words, this is not so much a stage-musical adaptation of the 1987 movie as a wildly magnified, amplified, spectacularized reenactment of it.

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